New pre-print with Jacqueline Janssen and Frank Jülicher! We extend the Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner (LSW) theory by matter supply, and find a novel universal law governing coarsening kinetics, valid for any constant matter supply in the interface-resistance-limited regime. 📄: arxiv.org/abs/2510.21552

Good news in rough times: Our work on generalising Lifshitz-Slyosov-Wagner (LSW) theory to active systems, led by the all-mighty Jonathan Bauermann, is out on PRL!! Special thanks to Christoph Weber @m-pol.bsky.social and Frank Jülicher. doi-org.sire.ub.edu/10.1103/f5x9...

New preprint 🥳 In our new paper, we show that “Advection selects pattern in multi-stable emulsions of active droplets” — which provides a path toward controlling regular arrangements of droplets. 🧵 📄 arxiv.org/abs/2510.00827

New preprint 🎉 What began as Frieder Johannsen’s bachelor thesis in the @zwickergroup.bsky.social (which I had the pleasure to supervise) evolved into our latest paper: “Chemically Active Liquid Bridges Generate Repulsive Forces” — unlike passive ones, which attract. 📄 arxiv.org/abs/2509.18777

“Journals and peer review are unlikely to change for the better if the companies that operate scientific indexes and citation databases continue to stifle innovation.” Read our guest post in DORA: buff.ly/EGDbskH

Our institute turned 100 years today! We had a fantastic celebration with scientific talks by Howard Stone and Christina Marchetti. 🎉

And that concludes our #kitp program on biomolecular condensates 😢 Wow, what an *incredible* experience, and unique place to learn and think and grow! 🤓

Can't say enough about the Condensates program at @kitp-ucsb.bsky.social. Invigorating discussions, fantastic facilities, and a beautiful location (a place I consider "home"). Thanks to @weber-lab.bsky.social, @jerelleaj.bsky.social, @zwickergroup.bsky.social, and Frank Julicher for organizing!

Just leaving Paris after 3 weeks of summer school on combining maths and physics to tackle #ActiveMatter. I gained new perspectives, met wonderful people and had fascinating discussions. It was great to communicate my research to so many interested people! And of course, Paris was just wonderful!

@jerelleaj.bsky.social, master painter 👩🏽‍🎨 of the blackboard 👩🏽‍🏫, in action! 🤩 She is amazing at capturing the essence of our complex, meandering (and sometimes contentious) discussions @kitp-ucsb.bsky.social

It’s been a lot of fun talking about chemically active condensates to such an attentive and motivated crowd!

We updated our pre-print on equilibria in multicomponent mixtures: arxiv.org/abs/2405.01138 In particular, we added the figure below, which shows that such mixtures exhibit countless metastable states between a metastable homogeneous state and the equilibrium with many phases.

Huge thanks to all the incredible speakers who have shared their research at the Young Biophysicists Meeting so far! Here's a glimpse. See you in the next session!

Ein großes Problem für den Kampf gegen #Machtmissbrauch ist der Mangel an verlässlichen Daten. Umso wichtiger ist die Forschung so engagierter Wissenschaftler*innen wie @leising.bsky.social @janalasser.bsky.social oder Andrea Kübler. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I am looking forward to tell you about my research at #DPG. Come by my poster on wednesday to learn how coarsening of active droplets can be controlled by active reactions!

We have an open postdoc position in our group! We seek motivated and fun people with a background in theoretical biological physics to work on projects revolving around pattern formation, cell biology, and particularly #condensates. Details: www.ds.mpg.de/4078435/job_... #TheoBiophysicsPosition

We published a one-page article in Nat. Chem. Eng. on phase separation in multicomponent mixtures: rdcu.be/ea4Ts The article exposes our latest results, which indicate such mixtures are generically multistable and imply that states with various different droplets (or none at all) are all stable.

MPI-CBG director Anthony Hyman @hymanlab.bsky.social will deliver the EMBO Lecture at the 49th FEBS Congress in Istanbul in July 2025. Read an interview with him, where he shares some of his inspirations and interests. network.febs.org/posts/anthon...

"Mysterious Blobs Found inside Cells Are Rewriting the Story of How Life Works" Exciting times ahead! www.scientificamerican.com/article/myst...

We wrote a review on the "Physics of droplet regulation in biological cells": arxiv.org/abs/2501.13639 Beside the basic #physics of phase separation, we discuss three aspects that separate cellular from traditional droplets:

We just updated our preprint on size-control of condensates by electrostatic effects: arxiv.org/abs/2409.15599 This joint work with the group of @jerelleaj.bsky.social shows that electrostatic effects matter, even when one would naively expect that screening by salt is strong.